As indicated in the Mercury News editorial on Dec. 26, the California Public Utilities Commission has utterly failed as a regulatory body. Instead, the PUC refuses to hold PG&E accountable for its negligence and even abets the company as it seeks to profit from the disaster for which it is responsible in San Bruno. We, the ratepayers and voters, must demand reform — if not through legislation, then by ballot measure. Either the PUC should be made directly accountable to the voters, or, preferably, it should be abolished completely and replaced with a new, elected statewide office analogous to that of the Insurance Commissioner. The “Utilities Commissioner” would have the authority to regulate entities like PG&E and require them to justify their rates. I assure you, were my last name “Munger,” I would bankroll such a ballot measure myself.

Lucas Ramirez

Mountain View

Medi-Cal makes care affordable

I was dismayed to see Medi-Cal provider rates dismissed as “unnecessary costs” by Gov. Jerry Brown’s office following the recent federal court decision that allows California to further cut reimbursements to doctors and others who care for low-income people. Every day in my community I see just how truly necessary those costs are. I talk to hardworking parents at my children’s school who probably would not be able to find a family doctor to take them as Medi-Cal patients if the doctor is forced to accept payment below the already ridiculously low 1985 reimbursement rates. Many Californians are just beginning to get back on their feet. We can’t smash this progress by making it more difficult for people to find health care they can afford and providers who can afford to give it to them.

Karen Grove

Menlo Park

Light rail needs express trains

The Mercury News article (Page 1A, Dec. 27) points out that VTA light-rail ridership is rather low. There is a good reason. I occasionally take light rail to the airport or downtown from Ohlone. It is so slow. If I work at Great America, the trip alone would be around 60 minutes. I am lucky to use the best VTA route, the Express 102 from Ohlone to Palo Alto. It costs me an extra 20 percent of time to take the bus, but I get to think about complex problems on the way there and nap on the way back. Overall, I actually gain considerable work time and am much more rested when I arrive home. VTA is finally waking up to the need for express trains. How much faster? The key is door-to-door time. Nothing can come close to the 102, but approaching what that does would make a huge difference to ridership.

Michael Lee

San Jose

No airport link, no ridership

Had light rail run directly into an airport terminal (instead of a bus stop one mile away) there would be no mention of “the least successful in the nation.” Think of how many more people would be familiar with light rail. Such an extension would serve 10 times the number of passengers than the proposed Los Gatos extension. Why not put it to a vote?

Joe Coughlin

San Jose

Where is the alternative to NRA?

The Dec. 21 editorial, “NRA’s unhinged response disqualifies it from debate over gun control,” was spot on. One salient point, that “the NRA is, first and foremost, dedicated to selling guns,” deserves further consideration. Polls show that about half of gun owners (only 24 percent of whom are even NRA members) actually want stricter gun laws (and the percentages tend to go up when polling about specific proposals). Furthermore, even 82 percent of NRA members support “prohibiting people on the terrorist watch lists from purchasing guns,” but NRA leadership won’t go for it because that is not where they get their marching orders. It doesn’t sell more guns. If responsible gun owners want a seat at the table, they are going to need an organization that represents them; not the gun manufacturers and dealers. They need to create a sane and viable alternative to the NRA.

Scott Stanford

Mountain View

Obama’s hypocrisy on gun control

Every second letter to the Mercury News has blamed the NRA or the mentally ill for the shootings in Newtown, but President Barack Obama told Barbara Walters in her interview on ABC that he was glad men with guns were guarding his daughter. Wasn’t it the NRA that wanted men with guns guarding our schools? Our president promised us swift action to restrict gun use, but in the example of his own life does something different.

Bill Graham

Salinas

Turn the U.S. into another Israel

After hearing the NRA suggest an armed “good person” with a gun should be on guard at every school in America, I paused to think. What came to my mind was “are we going to become like Israel?” The people in Israel live every day of their lives with the presence of armed soldiers standing guard to deter the next mass killing. Those who think our government is taking away our freedoms are the same ones advocating for more armed guards in our schools. Freedom to some may not be freedom to others.

Thomas Sutton

San Jose

Firearms database is kept confidential

Anyone interested in the gun control issue or not should read the Tiahrt amendment authored by Kansas Rep. Todd Tiahrt and passed in 2003. It prohibits the Bureau of ATF from releasing information from its firearms trace database to anyone other than a law enforcement agency or prosecutor in connection with a criminal investigation. Additionally, any data so released is inadmissible in a civil lawsuit. We have to ask ourselves who profits by this. Another little nugget for you to chew on is this statement by Mark Shields on Dec. 21. He notes that since Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, more Americans have died by gunfire than in all of the wars of America. I wonder how that compares with the number of Americans killed by terrorists.

Rob Lofland

Sunnyvale

Let’s be wary of quick fixes

As a parent, this “slaughter of innocents” is difficult to process on any level. I need time, and I am wary of quick fixes. I know that it’s easier to think about gun control than grapple with emotional pain and mental health issues, including depression and destructive impulses in youth, whether directed inwardly as suicide, or in outward acts of violence. We need to pay attention, and learn to identify, keep a close watch, and reach out to help at-risk youth. We should trouble ourselves to ask questions about the violent culture we have created, and why we are not able to recognize and help those who are in trouble. The pain of survivors of children who have been killed by another, or children who have killed themselves, though different, must be equally intense. Their lives have been irretrievably changed. My heart goes out to them.

Molly Rose

Palo Alto

Banning guns unlikely to help

For a long time, debates have been held over the right to bear arms. I believe the bill proposed to keep mentally ill patients from owning a gun once they are deemed a danger society is a good thing. However I do not think banning weapons in general would be positive.

Banning guns will most likely be as effective as the ban on illegal drugs, which end up being smuggled into the country anyway. Call me a cynic, but banning certain types of guns does not guarantee they will never be seen in California. Instead, only people who are willing to break laws in order to possess the banned types will have access to them.

Kaela Crowley

San Jose

The media are also a source of violence

Guns are not the only culprit in shaping our violent society. Television programs dwelling primarily on killing and maiming, coupled with violent video games and vicious scenes movies, desensitize the viewers. Beside gun control, we need to have less violence in our media. Let’s hold the perpetrators of these brutal “entertainments” responsible. I think that if many of us will write to the TV stations that we will stop watching these kind of programs (thus bringing down their ratings); they might change their offerings. How about doing something together in this direction? We can change the present U.S. culture one step at a time.

WASHINGTON – Hillary Clinton challenged Congress on Thursday to combat fake and misleading news on social media, using a post-election appearance to tackle an issue that gripped her presidential campaign and culminated with a shooting incident Sunday in Northwest Washington.